I was waiting for your reply. I am also trying not to use any chemicals in the hive. Introduced small cell starter strips recently and will keep introducing the frames until the bees are making their own wax combs.

I only use the powdered sugar dusting and recently have cut out some drone brood.

I can understand, though how frustrating it must be for people with many hives to attempt to do all this. I only have 2 and so I can take the time to do this.

The mechanism that Apiguard uses does not produce chemical resistant mites. It is thymol, made from the thyme spice plant. It is extremely volatile and the likelihood that it retained in wax is minimal.

Perhaps you're mixing it up with Apistan, fluvalinate, which does exactly as you say.

Personally, I veiw it's intrusiveness somewhere between PS and Oxalic acid vapor. Given the choice between Oxalic acid vaporization and Apiguard, I'd choose the oxalic acid. But....oxalic acid is not approved for use in the hive. If you use the acid, you best protect your lungs.

I will reiterate what is already said. It is the chemicals like fluvalinate and coumaphos (also another one called Amitraz) (these are pesticides) that are causing mites resistance to chemicals.

Oxalic acid and formic acid and Tymol (Apiguard) do not fall into these categories of chemicals (pesticides).

A quote from the MiteGone "Formic Acid Use Handbook anad Manual of Treatments" follows: Read closely

"WHAT LEVEL OF EFFICACY IS SUFFICIENT WITH NATURAL SUBSTANCES?More and more scientists are advising beekeepers that it is not necessary to kill everything at nce with 100% efficacy as pesticides originally did.

Pesticides act on a narrow band of nerve genes that easily mutate and mites build resistance quickly. 100% resistance to fluvalinate and coumaphos and 80% resistance to Amitraz was found in Florida in December 2001. Scientists are advising beekeepers to use natural substances like Tymol, formic acid and oxalic acid, which depending on application, have 70-100% efficacy. Since natural substances act on a very wide spectrum of genes from respiration, reproduction, and skin, mites are very unlikely to build resistance quickly. A treatment with 70% efficacy used twice a year can keep mites below the economic damage threshold.

Keep mites below the 8-10 mite natural drop. A low presence of mites may also allow bees to build up resistance to mites by increasing bee grooming and building natural defences against mites. All of Brazil has a natural selection population of bees and mites that exist together. Brazilian beekeepers do not treat. Unfortunately, having 90% of colonies dies through natural selection is not an option in North America."

If you want some very interesting reading about mites and mite controls, I have suggested in prior posts cited a site (ha, ha), I will post it again.

Today, is a glumb day. I am inserting the sticky boards into my colonies to ascertain mite levels. I did two sugar shake treatments at the beginning of the season, I have done no further treatments since that time. I began with (4) five frame nucs and (4) package bee colonies at the beginning of May. These colonies came to me and had had had formic acid treatments done in the original colonies in the spring. So, evidently, they came to me clean. They were not 100% clean by the time that I had done the sugar treatments, but the mite counts were very, very low. So....in a few days, the sticky boards, after 72 hours in the hive, and the time to count the mites will tell me where I am presently at, and what treatment is required, or not. I suspect treatment will be required.

The MiteGone site is listed below. The owner of the MiteGone is Bill Ruzika, he lives in a town about 400 km to the northeast of where I live. He travels worldwide teaching about the importance of keeping bees at a livable mite level count. I trust this man.

Now, going back to the small cell, as so many beekeepers do. They are obviously doing excellent with mite levels. This has been made known over and over again on our forum, and it sounds like Dee Lusby runs alot of colonies on smal cell and can absolutely condone smal cell beekeeping, and this is good that it is working for them. Yeah!!!!! If anything, read the information on this site, just to be an informed beekeeping person.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

I also have a Large cell hive that was a very mean cut that is 4 years old no chemicals they are doing well they have requeened themselves once. nature dosen't like chemicals especially MOTHER NATUREkirk-o

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"It's not about Honey it's not about Money It's about SURVIVAL" Charles Martin Simmon

nature is full of chemicals. nature may not always like what we do with the chemicals.

perhaps the trick is to learn all that we can and then do what works for us. just as there are people who never in their lives need so much as an aspirin, there are probably hives that never need any treatment. others, because of weather, genetics, or just bad luck, may need the help of what science and mother nature provides us.

the right answer is no more 'never treat', than 'always treat'.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

nature is full of chemicals. nature may not always like what we do with the chemicals.

perhaps the trick is to learn all that we can and then do what works for us. just as there are people who never in their lives need so much as an aspirin, there are probably hives that never need any treatment. others, because of weather, genetics, or just bad luck, may need the help of what science and mother nature provides us.

the right answer is no more 'never treat', than 'always treat'.

Well put. I was advised to use Apiguard AND CheckMite. I have opted to go with the natural treatment.

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside. - Robert X. Cringely

The problem is if you use anything at all to kill the mites and protect the bees you are skewing things so that bees that are not equipped to handle the mites keep surviving and only the mites that reproduce like crazy and have no balance with their host, keep surviving. In other words, you keep breeding poorly equipped bees and super mites.

As long as we keep treating, the bees and mites will never reach a workable relationship.

As long as we keep treating, the bees and mites will never reach a workable relationship

probably equally true of horses, dogs, and people. if you did not treat them, what survived would be stronger.

maybe people just need to decide what their loss threshold is and work within it. some people might want to take the chance of losing hives in the hopes that what is left is mite resistant. others may not. unless you can get all people to stop treating, you will end up with genetic, disease, and parasite cross contamination. that much of the problem is out of our hands.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

I could be wrong about this, but I think I am seeing Michael's point in action. My hive almost died from varroa mite virus this summer, but came back stronger than ever. In fact,this hive is even stronger now than my other strong hive. I feel that this hive overcame the virus and now the bees will be able to survive another attack.

Since I did nothing but powdered sugar dustings, the bees actually overcame this sickness on their own. Of course, anything can happen but for now the hive is extremely strong.

Maybe stronger bees or maybe not...There's more at play here than the lowly mite.

Suppose I have some bees that are mite resistant but neighboring colonies aren't. When those neighboring hives crash they will be a strong disease reservior. If my mite resistant bees are exposed to them, their virii could end up in my hive. Possibly endangering them.

I think it's important to keep mite loads supressed using small cell, powdered sugar, thymol, oxalic or formic acid. This is to prevent the spread of disease, not wipe out every single mite.

We do need to select and breed bees that are mite as well as disease resistant.

I could be wrong about this, but I think I am seeing Michael's point in action. My hive almost died from varroa mite virus this summer, but came back stronger than ever. In fact,this hive is even stronger now than my other strong hive. I feel that this hive overcame the virus and now the bees will be able to survive another attack.

Since I did nothing but powdered sugar dustings, the bees actually overcame this sickness on their own. Of course, anything can happen but for now the hive is extremely strong....

If you didn't change the queen, it's more likely that you got the mite levels down to a point where the bees could manage themselves.

I had a similar problem with a hive of mine. PS'd them down to < 10 mites per day. The hive is fairly strong now. I've observed them enough to see them cart out diseased bees as well as them grooming each other. I still plan on treating as I want to optimize their chances of making it through the winter.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

>...by me not treating them for mites, is it certain death for them? Do I just hand it over to Darwin?

Probably if they are on large cell contaminated comb, yes. But you could put them on natural cell size, and if they aren't doing well soon, requeen with hardier, more hygenic stock. Either Minnesota Hygenics, SMR, Purvis or feral survivors.

>Perhaps I should leave them alone and if they die out, wait for a feral hive and buy all small cell?

The problem is that they are at a disadvantage already because they are on large cell which if they build their own comb they would not have that disadvantage.

It does take a few things to get them to a natural system. I would do that first, while doing non contaminating treatments, and then stop treating.

SO MB, do you have a step by step as to how to transition to small cell...I have read about HSC, but with Winter coming it doesn't seem prudent to start changing out the foundation...this is overwhelming to me...sorry...

>SO MB, do you have a step by step as to how to transition to small cell...I have read about HSC, but with Winter coming it doesn't seem prudent to start changing out the foundation...this is overwhelming to me...sorry...

There are many ways to the same end. Some are more or less compatible with people's personal philosophies.

HSC is pretty instantaneous and actually adding a box of them this time of year and feeding might get them filled with capped stores. But I probably wouldn't get too agressive with feeding them into the brood nest. You could feed them one at a time and see what happens.

PF120's or PF100's from Mann Lake are 4.95mm and the bees seem to accept them well. If you prefer to let the bees draw the comb and don't mind plastic they work. Again, you could put a box of these on and feed a lot and see if you can get them to fill them with stores. You could also feed one at a time into the brood nest. Just don't get too aggressive this time of year.

Small cell wax is harder to get them to draw the right size this time of year, so, although you could feed a few into the brood nest, you probably can't give them a super of it and expect it to end up 4.9mm

Foundationless has the same drawbacks this time of year as the small cell. They might build nice small cells in the brood nest, but probably not in the supers.

It's not complicated. Pick what you want to use to get natural sized or small sized cells and feed it into the brood nest one frame at a time. When that one is full of brood feed another in. Move the other frames out as you add these in the middle. Move combs of honey and pollen up or down as you run out of space to put in frames.